My little runaway

And so this month see`s the Brighton Marathon and with it Spring well and truly underway. Everyone is up and running this month, walking, biking running, hop skip and jumping, and generally glad to be alive and being active now the weather is better and the days are longer.

So as you grab those luminous lycra shorts and prepare to roller blade ten miles along the sea front be sure to warm up warm down and increase the amount of exercise you do gradually as your body wakes up from the slumber of winter.

Tendon and ligament damage can occur through improper training regimes or over enthusiastic exercise. Over use of joints or repetitive strain injuries are commonly caused through excessive running or sports. Runners with injuries such as shin splints, knee pain, Achilles tendon problems, Iliotibial Band Syndrome or general foot or ankle pain can all benefit from acupuncture treatment, increasing healing time and enabling a return to training or work and not chronic or recurring injury.

Acupuncture works by stimulating the body’s energy, (Qi) the electromagnetic activity created through chemical reactions on a cellular level. The excitement and activation of the body’s energy draws blood to the area. In Chinese medicine we say Qi is the commander of the blood and blood is the mother of Qi to describe the yin yang interconnected nature of this phenomenon.

In other words exciting the electromagnetic field in an injured knee draws blood to the area, and the blood contains the healing aspects of the immune system such as white blood cells, lymphocytes etc to draw away waste products and stimulate tissue repair.

The other mechanism at play in acupuncture treatment is the systemic factor. We not only work on the local area but on the deep organs and systems of the body to strengthen the immune response. The classic one I see is people who suffer chronic tendon strains and suffer a systemic “blood deficiency” i.e. there isn’t enough extra blood to repair and nourish the tendons and allow healing to take place. Including points to stimulate this aspect of the body and include blood building foods in the diet allows the body to complete what it is trying to do.

Acupuncture is very effective at treating musculoskeletal injury but sometimes a structural problem is contributing to an injury and chiropractic or osteopathic treatment is necessary first in order to correct this before acupuncture can be used to strengthen or speed up repair.

We all have our limits and sometimes we all need help from outside of ourselves, here at Coast we try to provide everything you need to live as fully as possible. Now go outside and play!